📝 Editor’s Note
Hey.
You awake?
Me neither.
It is after 1:00AM. I am tired, working too much and feel like I have zero time to be writing a newsletter. BUT(!) an opportunity is knocking and that is very much the point of this space. So I’m yawning my way through building Google Forms, hyperlinking and typing about what is probably the most exciting pitch callout of the year.
Should you get to the end of this newsletter before you nod off you’ll find out one of the big reasons why my wick’s worn out. But it’s something I’m so so so excited to be working on right now, and I cannot wait to share it in a few weeks.
Also, thank you to everyone who pitched into the BBC World Service round from the last newsletter. It was overwhelming in the best sense and the whole cycle was really successful in a lot of different ways. I look forward to doing that again next year when the window for pitching the network opens once more.
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on what it’s like to be an audio producer nowadays. More than ever it seems the career path for producers is one that leads down a narrow road to working on other people’s projects, ideas, IP. Meanwhile your own projects collect dust on a shelf next to the near empty piggybank where they used to keep the money for the fun, creative stuff. Before you know it, you are someone’s Senior Producer II, but you never got to find your own voice. And that is why it is now almost 2:00AM and I am up writing this. My hope is that the opportunities here can be the match that ignites a dusty log of an idea into a bonfire of creative fulfilment.
Was that last sentence way too grandiose? I said I was sleepy!
All right. Read on, then you go get some ZZZs too, OK?
- Dennis :-)
📻 Music docs and oddball audio
If you, like me, are deeply into making audio stories that go beyond the conventional — pieces that make maracas of the medium, works that treat narrative structure like vatrnraei ctursetr, or stories that are symphonies — then, best friend, this is the opportunity you have been waiting for! The current BBC Radio 3 Speech round is where you can pitch ideas to arguably the greatest series ever to be broadcast: Between the Ears.
If you aren’t familiar with BtE (which no one but me calls it), the series is a home for ‘innovative and thought-provoking features that make adventurous use of sound’. Isn’t that, like, exactly what you dreamed of making when you started working in audio? If you’ve got something wild up your sleeve that would work as a 30-minute piece, then you should certainly shoot your shot here as there are not many other spaces to make this kind of work.
There are two other Radio 3 slots commissioning right now. The first of those being The Radio 3 Documentary. These are different from say a World Service or Radio 4 documentary because the focus of them is on music. Primarily these pull from classical music, but you can submit ideas from other genres. You can also pitch docs from other disciplines but they need to relate to music in someway. Regardless, these docs are all around 45 minutes.
The final opportunity is to pitch The Essay, which are commissioned in sets of five, 15 minute episodes. These series are usually a single voice — typically a known writer or thinker — reading scripted ‘musical and intellectual insight; reflection and thought-provoking storytelling.’ This space can also feature sets of interviews and also compilations of five short features. For the latter, they can all be made by different producers. Maybe you and 4 friends want to pitch a suite?
The pitching page over at Written In Air dot com links back to all of the information for each of these opportunities. I really suggest reading through the editorial opportunities because they explain what they are looking for much more thoroughly than I have here.
Also, the turn around for this round is fairly quick and the deadline to pitch Written In Air is 27 Oct. at 23:59 EST.
After you get your head around all that… SEND EM IN!
🎤 Written In Air Live @ Resonate Podcast Festival
Since this is the third year of it happening and the third time I am going, I guess you can say I really like the RESONATE Podcast Festival in Richmond, Virginia. If you will be there at the end of October then please come and check out the show I am putting together to wrap the first day of talks. Maybe it will be like no other live podcast or audio show you have ever been to before?
I am buzzing about the works and performances from the storytellers who will be featured that night. Let me introduce you to them and share some of their work:
I first became a fan of Tej Adeleye through listening to her NTS Radio show Floating Roofs. But, on top of having impeccable taste in tunes, she is also an incredible doc-maker, audio artist, producer and writer.
You would most regularly hear Craig Eley’s work on a lesser-known podcast called Song Exploder, but he’s also the creator of the audiophile newsletter and podcast Field Noise, on top of being a cultural historian, an actual PhDoctor and a dad!
Rebecca Nolan is the Newfoundland-based audio artist, sound designer and producer behind Windswept Radio. Her piece, ‘The Pear Tree’, about a man, a pear tree, and the disappearance of small village in Cyprus, won the a Silver Award at the Prix Marulic.
If you were excited to hear that Love Me was coming back, then you already probably listened to the episode that kicked that off — ‘Delejos’ from Julie Piñero. If you didn’t hear about it there, maybe you’re like ‘oh, yeah, it also won the 2024 Tribeca Audio Nonfiction Award!’
Everyday I mourn the loss of The 11th, partly because it introduced me to some of the most creative audio brains around, like Sai Sion H. They wrote, produced, performed and birthed the epic space audio-drama His Saturn Return, which would win a Webby, a Third Coast Award, and my little radio heart!
We aren’t recording or filming the show, but down the line there may be ways to experience some of this work. However, soon after you will be able to ‘play’ one of the pieces. 🎮 😉
🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊 🔊
3 or 4 or 5 ‘not a podcast’ things I keep listening too…
• Mystery Tiime's 'Not Your Fault' is about as close to perfect as music can be
• Do not ask me to say ‘isrwys’ by 7aat7aat, but it’s such as sweet beat
• This HEAVILY samples my favourite song from FIFA 2004 on PS2
• Nala Sinephro has a new album and you should listen to it the whole way through
• OK this *is* a podcast, but its about Vashti Bunyan so it only ½ counts
